Iowa House Votes for New Regulations on Food Delivery Services

DES MOINES, IA (Radio Iowa) By a nearly unanimous vote, the Iowa House has passed a bill that would put new restrictions on food delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash. If the bill becomes law, the companies would face fines if driver are caught eating some of the food they’re supposed to be delivering. Representative Brian Meyers of Des Moines cites a 2019 study that found one in four delivery drivers sample the food.

“That is a pretty alarming number of people stealing fries,” Meyer said, “so I think that it’s important that we have those provisions in there on the food safety.” Restaurants would be required to put food in tamper resistent containers. Delivery drivers would be prohibited from smoking and they could not have kids or pets in the vehicle when food is being delivered. The bill also would force delivery companies to have an agreement with a restaurant before they could advertise and deliver the restaurant’s food. Republican Representative Shannon Lundgren of Peosta owns a restaurant.

“What really isn’t fair is when a national company privates our menus and places them on their website and acts as though they are us,” Lundgren says. “…In January of this year, my menu was pirated and we had to go through some very interesting steps to try to get removed from that website.” The bill passed the House on a 97 to two vote. A similar bill is eligible for debate in the Senate…………